Pantheon
by abozzo
Summary: A look into some of the gods and goddesses in Gaiman's wonderful work. This is my first work, so please read and review! Rated for safety, standards are rather relative. If you can stomach his book, this should be fine.


**A/N: My first chapter, ever. What do you think? Please review!**

A tune played on the radio. He did not know, or even particularly care, what song it was; some unknown, run-of-the-mill pop, probably, straining blandly from the car radio, bouncing off the upholstery just like those traffic lights reflecting off the wet street.

He could feel his frustration stiffly in his shoulders, and Jenna had ignored all his calls ever since he had to cancel their anniversary date three days ago due to work. There was absolutely nothing to do after hours in this godforsaken suburb where he was filming and getting ordered around like a nobody. It was a very typical day, in a very typical, boring suburb lost somewhere – who knows where, and who cared? – in America.

The traffic light shifted, and he revved lazily forward.

* * *

_ The young man she had felt, miles away, was coming in. He was frustrated, and not particularly thinking very much; nothing would lure him better than the promise of a quick fuck. At least today wouldn't be totally uneventful, and those days were long past when she could pick and choose._

_ She pulled slightly at her garment, which presented itself, now, as a flimsy knotted yellow blouse. Tugging again, her dress was complete; yellow blouse, paired with equally trashy shorts. She could feel his car turning in, soon. Calmly, she turns away to look nonchalantly at the peeling wall of the motel nearby.  
_

_

* * *

_

On a whim he pulled into an alley dim with twilight calm; Sunset Way, he never knew this road existed, and he slowed to look around. The headlamps flickered past a tall figure, tossing a momentary, amber silhouette on a building behind. His breath caught, for a moment – a woman, her height almost statuesque.

She turned to look for the source of light and caught his eyes, blood-red lips curving lightly. A hooker, obviously, so he rolled down his window as he coasted gently to a stop. Perhaps his day wouldn't be that bad.

* * *

_ The usual platitudes, and a well-timed smile or two, and she was in the front seat of his car, more phrases falling out of her lips like a Black Widow spider reeling her prey in. His mind focussed almost entirely on driving into the cheap motel as quickly as he could._

_ Well, he'd learn. Back in the old days her altar boys needed to find their true goddesses, too; repeating meaningless prayers to one deity after another until they found her, upon which their psalms blossomed into true belief.  
_

_

* * *

_

The lobby was the size of a sitting room, the faux leather covers of sofas peeling slightly to reveal plastic mesh. He strode with practised ease to the counter desk.

"Two hours."

"That would be thirty dollars, then." The squat man smokes a cheap cigarette, and picks out a card key.

This one tipped him a fiver, and turned smartly on his heels to walk towards the lift. He'd seen them come (_though not go_) and it was exactly none of his business. She brought enough people for them to cover the costs.

* * *

_ He walked beside her to a door in the corridor, all puffed up with manly self-importance. That's how they all look, and it strikes her as endearing; she remembers how, not too long ago, her devotees prostrated themselves with youthful confidence. She always liked the ebullient ones._

* * *

He steps through the nondescript door, and is momentarily surprised by the almost luxurious deep red wall hangings and bedspreads. But then red was the colour of romance, after all, and it wouldn't really surprise him if she normally held this room for her clients anyway. He opened his mouth to discuss the price.

_

* * *

  
She inhaled pale relief as she stepped into her dark room, furnished with wall hangings and bedspreads she had to change herself. Nonetheless it felt like a home, occasionally, and the different shades of blood-red reminded her of the oxen they used to slit. _

_ Now he was bargaining the fee, as they were wont to do; she doesn't mind because it gives her enough for beef burgers (they tasted almost, _almost_ good enough, but only when she was hungry enough) when the going got tough._

_ It shouldn't be too difficult to convince him to light the candle, and recite; the feeling of indulgence always makes them feel even more important. For they were indeed important, just not the way they believed. _

* * *

Now she was holding out a red candle and asking him to light it, and he was going to refuse then he saw the shimmer in her eyes, and he wanted to get down to it, anyway; he'd caught the looks she cast him in the corridor, and if this was some hooker game he'd play along this once.

_

* * *

  
The first dedication – the mental barrier. He protests like a small child; "_I'm_ paying you, you know." But of course. The candle smoke wisps gently around her hair, a ghost of an offering._

_ She hushes him with long strokes, fingers massaging expertly like a cook rubbing sesame oil into chicken skin. She feels him unbend a bit under her, and hiss softly; she can feel the arrogance in his mind fading into animal existence._

* * *

Most hookers don't do it like this, the typical wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am mercenary encounter sliding forgotten from his mind, now utterly single-minded (_now she knows why they say men have a one-track mind_) on the words he never knew he was saying. No, not mere words, but a worshipful prayer he didn't know he knew.

_

* * *

  
He was not bad, she supposed, and in the echoes of his words – as he dedicates to her parts of himself amidst throes of tepid elation – she can almost hear the piety of altar boys past and present that wove her into existence, lifting her from mortality to become a collage of everybody's dreams._

_ He speaks well, words grafted from the deepest parts of his soul in offering, completing him, emptying him._

* * *

"How – how are you doing this – "

His question echoes across the room, bouncing off the bedspread the colour of oxen blood.

_

* * *

  
She smiles and continues, shaping him to her, swallowing widely_

* * *

And in his eyes finally shimmer a foreign understanding, and he opens his lips one last time, "I worship you with my body…"

_

* * *

  
For tonight she has enough to survive another day, and as she hangs up the cell phone she stretches feline, and sleeps._


End file.
